[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

I would choose to help the team with 10 minutes of my time. In this case, I would feed the piggybank for 10 minutes. Then, I would get back to work.

Originally Posted by AlecMataloni

Let's not forget the money you could've been making while you were planning and typing out immense tl;dr posts on Chief Delphi...

Tristian, you've got a point, but I think one post expressing your concerns would suffice.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

(And yes, I am recognizing the irony of spending an inordinate amount of time discussing this topic, when perhaps I could be doing something more productive.)

Yeah, I know.¹

I probably shouldn't have led off with a numerical example that begat more examples, as people objected to the simplifications in it. Gary actually made one of the underlying points quite effectively with his brief anecdote—which wasn't open to the same kind of argumentation, given that he was describing a real event.

In my defence though, all too often people don't want to run the numbers, because conventional wisdom can be so much more convenient. I'm glad I did, because it allowed me the chance to verify that my initial instinct was justifiable (at least to me). I'm absolutely not going to say that it's always worth it to spend time calculating things out or formally describing things like that, but when the consequences of making a faulty economic decision are significant, it's a useful technique to be aware of. (Legislators should try it more often....)

Originally Posted by lemiant

It is for the current set (I only just found this thread), and it can handle about 3000 coins per minute. With only a rudimentary knowledge of python you could pull this off. You probably don't even need the headers, I just put them in so that if they store each request and all its information (which is very unlikely), they won't be able to detect the subterfuge.

If you were actually doing it for real, I don't think you'd want to leave consistent referrer metadata pointing to ChiefDelphi...that's like asking to get blacklisted (if they do indeed disapprove of scripted input).

Originally Posted by lemiant

EDIT: After reading through this thread I ran it again for the other side so as to not influence the outcome. Seriously though, you guys SIGNIFICANTLY underestimate the power and overestimate challenge of scripts. If two of me were fighting this out, the number would be in the tens to hundreds of millions (or, more likely, the site would crash).

Interesting that the rate at which you were able to submit was so high; I figured that because it was done through Flash, it actually had to completely execute all the animations before registering the next coin. I guess that was a shoddy assumption on my part. (Actually, from playing a lot of Flash games in the early 2000s, I should really know better.)

I still think this was at least significantly scripted, perhaps using a less-efficient technique, or perhaps running for less time.

¹ My preceding posts in this thread run about 5 400 words, which is worth somewhere between 10 and 20 pages of text.